Energy action plan is making progress, Ramaphosa says

Government will release a detailed report outlining the work done to improve the performance of Eskom’s power stations a year after cabinet launched the energy action plan to resolve the load-shedding crisis, President Cyril Ramaphosa said on Monday.

Ramaphosa said government was able to report significant progress in several areas such as acceleration in building new generation capacity and driving regulatory reforms to transform the electricity sector.

“Eskom’s generation fleet continues to show sustained improvement. Unplanned losses have been reduced to less than 16,000MW in the past two months, down from more than 18,000MW previously,” he said.

With winter soon coming to an end, despite load-shedding continuing, the president said a worst-case scenario has been averted by stabilising the performance of Eskom’s power stations and reducing demand.

“Planned maintenance has been reduced during the winter period, with Eskom having undertaken significant maintenance in the months preceding winter. Looking ahead, damaged units at the Kusile and Medupi power stations are being returned to service on an expedited basis,” he said.

Ramaphosa said these units represented more than 3,000MW of capacity.

“Since the launch of the energy action plan, we have worked to add as much power as possible to the grid. Eskom has unlocked close to 400MW from companies with extra available capacity, and a further 600MW is in the process. We have sourced an additional 400MW from Cahora Bassa in Mozambique,” he said.

In his weekly newsletter Ramaphosa said the Eskom debt relief package announced by finance minister Enoch Godongwana earlier this year would enable necessary investment in maintenance and expansion of the transmission network.

“We are fast-tracking the procurement of new generation capacity from renewables, gas and battery storage. Later this year the first three projects from the emergency power programme are expected to connect to the grid,” he said.

In addition, the president said about 2,300MW from the most recent bid windows of the renewable energy independent power producer programme should be in construction.

“One of the most important contributions to the energy action plan has been the uptake by households and businesses of rooftop solar,” he said.

Ramaphosa noted it was encouraging to see more municipalities are allowing customers to feed electricity into the grid when they have surplus power, saying this will provide another incentive for businesses to invest in alternative energy sources.

“Regulatory changes have helped to boost private investment in new generation capacity. These changes include the removal of the licensing threshold for generation facilities and the fast-tracking of project approvals and registration,” he said.

The president commended the work done to enable a boom in private investment in electricity generation, with a pipeline of more than 10,000MW of new capacity that will begin to connect to the grid later this year.

“To ensure we never experience power shortages again, we are implementing fundamental reforms to create a competitive electricity market and an independent national grid operator,” he said.

“We have maintained load-shedding will not be resolved overnight, but we are making clear progress towards reducing it and eventually bringing it to an end,” he said.

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